


growing pains

by postmanbutters



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Childhood Friends, Drabble, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 08:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9170149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postmanbutters/pseuds/postmanbutters
Summary: eren and armin grow up together. they fill in each other's gaps. they are two halves of one whole.just a drabble





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kennymcshamrock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kennymcshamrock/gifts).



> this was a little fic for my love and light and fiancée. this is not beta'd and there's probably quite a few weird silly mistakes, but i wrote it in 20 minutes just for fun so i'm not fixing any.

Armin Arlert is born a month early. He's small and shriveled, light when he's swaddled flush to his mother's chest. She whispers that he'll be big and strong one day, but even she has a hard time believing her own words when the tiniest fingers she's ever seen wrap themselves around one of her own. 

When Armin is two years old, he's chest high to the other toddlers. He has no mother now, but his grandpa fills in as best as he can. Armin has blonde hair that no one can stand to cut, so it sits piled up on his head, unless his chubby fingers reach up to pry it lose, then it gets in his eyes. His grandpa makes sure he eats all his vegetables and plays outside. He heard sunlight can make children grow. 

By age six, Armin looks roughly four, but he makes up for it in his vast vocabulary. He reads books heavier than him, he drinks in facts and knowledge and information like it's the nutrient he's been missing. By this time, the other school children have realized he's not like them. They push him down in the street when they play outside. Eren Jaegar, Armin's neighbor from next door, gives a boy a black eye the next time it happens. He looks roughly eight. They don't push Armin down again. 

By twelve, Armin's grandpa has given up on him growing. Armin comes up to Eren's chest. He has neat, small hands and clean fingernails. His nose is small and round, his hair is still long. Eren has not stopped growing, and Armin theorizes he never will. Where Armin lacks in Eren's height, Eren lacks in Armin's wit. Armin has to read him (-and explain to him) the words he so easily drinks down and digests. Everyone has their shortcomings, Eren and Armin have just taken to completing each other's. 

They sit shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, and when Eren isn't touching Armin, he feels lost. They kiss sometimes, on the cheek and the mouth. They play mom and dad with imaginary children as well as kings and queens, knights slaying monsters. 

Eren knows that Armin won't ever be tall or broad, but he bridges the gap. If any boy's push Armin around he sees red, he pushes them twice as hard. He'd knock teeth out for Armin, he'd knock skulls. 

Armin knows that Eren will always need patience, a gentle voice to explain what others grasp so easily, and he will gladly do it, especially when he has so much to share. He feels lucky Eren is so glad to listen, even when he doesn't understand. 

When Armin is 16, he has no one except Eren. He is small, and much smaller now in a world with terrible things much bigger than him. Eren knows Armin is something to be protected, but also something not to be taken lightly. Armin knows Eren isn't a weapon. It's this simple understanding of each other that fuels heated kisses under itchy cotton blankets, wandering hands. Eren is still so lost when they aren't joined at the hip. He craves softness in a world where there seems to be none. Armin's thighs offer that and more. 

When they stop counting how old they are because days seem numbered, Eren and Armin find a spare day between training to steal away into the woods. They wear their finest clothes. Eren has been saving his dinner rolls. They set out a blanket meticulously and face each other on their knees, Armin wears his white blanket over his hair like a halo. They've made rings out of sheet metal. Armin's is incredibly tiny next to Eren's, who has a daisy shoved behind his ear and a lazy half smile. They kiss and eat bread. It's a quiet and sacred affair. They consider themselves soul bonded at last. 

Armin Arlert has always been small. He will never be big and strong, but to Eren Jaegar, he is the center of the universe, and that is certainly something his mother would be proud of.


End file.
